FAMILIES travelled through the NIGHT to beat the Dover chaos today as Britain’s holiday mayhem entered its third day.
The Kent Port declared a “critical incident” on Friday, with holidaymakers describing waits of up to “30 hours” for ferries.
Traffic in Dover seen building on the third day of holiday mayhem[/caption]
Passengers arrived for flights at 4.30am in Bristol today[/caption]
Families have reported travelling through the night to try and beat the chaos, with some pictured here in the dark outside Bristol Airport this morning[/caption]
One passenger warned people were “passing out in the heat” during hours worth of queues, adding the hard shoulder was being used as “a public urinal” in the gridlock yesterday.
While queues aren’t expected to reach the lengths they did on Friday and Saturday, families have described fleeing through the night to make their trips on time today.
One person tweeted: “Have just left the house at 3am heading to [the Euro Tunnel]. Crossing booked for 1.30pm. Let’s see what happens.”
Another wrote: “We left London at 9.30pm for a 7am crossing.
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“We just checked in about 20 minutes ago but are not at passport control yet.”
More than 6,000 cars are expected at the port of Dover today, compared with more than 10,000 yesterday.
Airports are also filling up fast, with huge queues seen snaking around Bristol Airport at 4.30am.
It comes after cars were backed bumper to bumper outside Dover on Saturday, with the summer holidays now well underway.
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One frustrated traveller, Joan, told LBC she and her disabled older sister, Gina, entered the traffic jam around 8:30am to go through the Eurotunnel and had moved just one mile in eight hours.
She said: “It’s absolutely horrendous. There are people passing out, we’ve had no police presence, there are people ringing 999, we’ve had no information.
“The hard shoulder is like a public urinal now, people are trying to give their dogs exercise, we’ve gone through the worst heat of the day and people are running out of water.”
A ramp up of post-Brexit border checks and French authorities’ understaffing checkpoints in Dover have been blamed for the hold-ups.
Some travellers reported delays of seven hours, while the BBC said one man had been waiting to make the crossing for “30 hours”.
In the early hours of Sunday, a tweet from the port said the “system brought in temporarily to manage excess traffic in the area had ended and traffic can proceed directly to the port”.
And shortly before 9.30am, it said tourist traffic was “moving slowly” through border controls with an average waiting time of 60 minutes.
“Freight flows are freely flowing,” it added.
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Eurotunnel has warned of a delayed service at Folkestone, with processing time on Sunday morning from check-in to boarding estimated to be around 90 minutes.
Dover continued to warn travellers to “come prepared” when asked whether people should still ensure they have appropriate water, food and medical supplies with them if travelling.
Vehicles seen queuing at the border control booths at Dover this morning[/caption]
Passengers sleep wherever they can at Bristol Airport first thing[/caption]
Passengers arrive at Heathrow airport at 6am[/caption]
